This blog is all about how I how used humor to remain sane while dealing with the insanity of a brain tumor the size of my wife’s fist. Why blog? To help other folks cope with serious health issues/brain tumors/cancer and give anybody wading through the muck of rehabilitation some hope or at least a chuckle or two. It will include a vaguely chronological story, books reviews, presentations to rehab patients, etc.

The
point being that while exercise helps the body (duh!) it just might help your
brain even more. Ms. Deardorff says it this way “Exercise tones the legs,
builds bigger biceps and strengthens the heart. But of all the body parts that
benefit from a good workout, the brain may be the big winner.”

Deardorff
summarizes a bag of research findings by noting that “Scientists used to
believe the mind-body connection was a one-way street: The brain helped build a
better physique — or else it sabotaged attempts to get to the gym. But scores
of studies suggest that what’s good for the body also is nurturing the old
noodle. Exercise, it turns out, can help improve cognition in ways that differ
from mental brain-training games.”

Wait!
Where’s the science behind all this?

Deardorff nails that saying “In the
mid-1990s, Carl Cotman’s team at the University of California-Irvine first
showed that exercise triggers the production of a protein called brain-derived
neurotrophic factor, or BDNF, which helps support the growth of existing brain
cells and the development of new ones.” Her article goes on to cite other
studies and scientists.